Lawee made the remarks at a panel at the 16th annual Stanford Accel Symposium, a conference organized by the university and venture-capital firm Accel Partners.

“I saw this guy in my building for two years, walking his dog, and I was like, ‘I hope this guy does something,’” said Lawee.

Despite Lawee’s initial skepticism, Rubin stayed at Google to champion the development of Android as an open-source operating system. It is now one of the top platforms for high-end smartphones, competing successfully with Apple’s iPhone.

Rubin’s quiet efforts paid off, and Lawee can now hold up Android as an example of a successful deal because of it.

“It’s obvious when the deal doesn’t work out because the people leave,” said Lawee. “That’s the key metric: Is the technology being used? A lot of it depends on the perseverance of the team coming in.”

Of course, much of that business comes from AdMob, a mobile-advertising startup whose acquisition Google completed earlier this year. Google paid $750 million for AdMob, though, so the return on investment may not have been as strong as for the relatively small amount it spent on Android.